


Bruised Tails

by Iceshard1011



Series: Ruby Wings [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Mild Injury, Platonic Cuddling, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, cold-blooded and touch-starved morons refuse to admit they're snugglin, dragon roman back at it causing trouble and getting people involved, he saw some small red thing and chased it, it's just some bruises, really it's just remus being remus, remus could be seen as unsympathetic but i promise he's not, remus likes to stomp, these chapters just keep getting shorter don't they, you can pry soft janus from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26205784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iceshard1011/pseuds/Iceshard1011
Summary: Janus gets a visitor.Post Putting Others First (SVS Redux).
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders
Series: Ruby Wings [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884613
Comments: 13
Kudos: 83





	Bruised Tails

Janus didn't mind working.

He wasn't the best at it, but he wasn't opposed to reading through scripts and ideas for videos, just out of sheer curiosity. Once and awhile, someone like Logan would even listen to any feedback he'd offer. That was always nice. (That was all, though. It wasn't like Janus' heart leapt when Logan nodded when he talked, or his throat got thick when Patton beamed at his suggestions. It wasn't like he _cared_ — about them _or_ their opinions.)

Regardless, oftentimes, when he had nothing better to do he'd find himself at the desk in his room, musing over sheets of paper, a pen idly flicking in his fingers, like he was now.

A creaking made him look up. He narrowed his eyes at the slowly opening door; he wasn't in much of a mood to endure one of Remus' pranks.

He quickly realised that wasn't the case when a blur of red scampered across his bedroom floor and shot up onto his bed. Janus barely got a good look at the moving coloured smear before it was burrowing itself under his bed covers.

Janus blinked. His gaze wandered back to the work at his desk.

His door swung open and smashed against the wall as a much bigger shape burst into the room.

"Janus!" Remus shouted in greeting. His eyes were wild as they scanned the room. "Have you seen…?"

Janus raised an eyebrow at him, bored. "Seen what, Remus?" he prompted.

Remus looked confused for a moment. "I don't know," he admitted, which pulled Janus' eyebrow back down. "A lizard?"

In the corner of his eye, Janus watched his bed covers shift, as the lizard beneath them bristled indignantly. Remus was peering behind Janus' bookshelf and missed the movement.

"A lizard?" Janus echoed. "In my room?"

Remus pulled back from sticking his head between the shelf and the wall and nodded enthusiastically.

"I don't believe I have," Janus said as he studied his gloves thoughtfully.

Remus grumbled under his breath. He left the room, slamming the door behind him and stomping off down the hallway.

Janus listened to his thumping footsteps as they receded. Once they had faded, he rose to his feet and walked over to his bed. He pulled back the blanket and looked archly down at his little intruder.

"What are you doing in my room?" he demanded, not caring for the puppy-like eyes Roman was staring up at him with. At his question, the dragon crouched down further and looked at the bed sheets.

Janus studied the small reptile, almost fascinated. He'd heard Patton talk about how this happened to Roman, whenever his self-doubt became such a problem that his body morphed into a tiny, scaled monster. He'd never seen the prince like this before, though, and he couldn't help but be transfixed by the creative side's form. His talons weren't even the size of Janus' pinky. His head looked no bigger than a cat's, a diamond of shiny scales and big eyes and small, curving horns.

Janus frowned, however, when his gaze traveled across the spiny ridge of Roman's back, passing his fluttering, bat-like wings, down to his tail. Its scales were dulled and dark, and it was resting crookedly atop the bed.

It wasn't a stretch to figure it was Remus who had stomped on the little dragon. Janus found that image simultaneously amusing and concerning.

"Get into a scuffle with Remus?" he asked, raising an entertained eyebrow. Roman didn't answer, which was answer enough. _(Although,_ Janus reasoned, _he can't exactly talk in this form.)_

Janus peered at the damaged limb, his stomach twinging slightly. He gestured to it, a little hesitantly. Roman shifted, eyeing his hand glumly.

"May I?" he asked softly, and after a pause, Roman flicked his tail forward, into Janus' gloved hands. He held (surprisingly) perfectly still as Janus carefully inspected his tail, turning it over in his fingers. The dragon's eyes, impossibly big, Janus thought, followed his every cautious move. Janus didn't comment on it.

Roman's tail tip twitched as Janus poked one darkened scale and he winced, looking up. Roman's talons, no bigger than a dog's claws, were clenching and unclenching the bed covers. It was such a human notion that Janus almost felt sorry for him. He wondered if Roman hated transforming. He figured it couldn't have been nice to hate your work so much that you physically deformed.

He gently squeezed the tail and Roman snarled, yanking it from his grip. The deceitful side blinked and pulled his hands back as Roman whirled. He tucked his tail safely between his legs and flared his wings, his lips curling back to bare his fangs.

"Oh, knock it off," Janus scolded, taken aback by the fierce display. "You're not an animal. Quit acting like one."

This made Roman freeze up. He blinked, his ferocious expression melting away to shock. Slowly his wings retracted back to fold against his sides. He lowered his head. His tail stayed between his legs for a moment before he dragged it out and edged it toward Janus' hands once again.

Janus didn't touch it.

"I'm sorry," he said. Roman's head shot up. Janus reached forward and ran his hand down the dragon's head, trailing across his neck and down his spine. The creative side shuddered but didn't pull away.

Janus retracted his hand (which earned him a hard look from the little spitfire) and waved it. A small ice pack appeared, the cold of the frozen insulator already seeping through his gloves. He placed it carefully on the edge of his bed and nudged it towards Roman. The dragon flicked his tail atop the ice bag and shifted to sit beside it. He didn't look very comfortable. Janus couldn't blame him.

After a moment of indecision, Janus reached forward and pulled one of his fluffier blankets forward. He shuffled it in front of Roman, folding it until it looked like a comfortable nest of warmth. Roman looked at the blanket, to Janus, then back. Without much fuss, he crawled into it, keeping his tail resting on top of his ice pack.

Janus smiled approvingly and shifted, leaning back against his headboard. The pair looked at each other for a moment, Janus' eyebrows drawn down and Roman blinking in uncertainty.

Finally, slowly, Janus moved. He brought his hands against each other and gently began to ease his gloves from his fingers until they slipped off completely. Roman's ears pricked at this, but Janus ignored him. He placed the gloves carefully to the side and idly reached forward to begin stroking the dragon again.

At first Roman started to duck away, tensing under Janus' touch. But after a few minutes, when Janus didn't harm him or relent, he relaxed again. Dare Janus thought that he actually melted under his fingers.

"Why did you come to me?" he wondered offhandedly, knowing Roman couldn't respond. "It's not like the _light sides_ would certainly be far more accommodating to your needs." He watched expectantly as Roman looked up at him. The dragon's eyes were unreadable.

"You could have easily left my room the moment Remus was gone," Janus went on, more to himself at this point than Roman. He studied that morphed side through thoughtfully squinted eyes. Turning uncomfortable under the examination, Roman looked away.

"Do they not like seeing you as a dragon?" Janus asked.

Roman blinked, then slowly raised his gaze back to the half snake's. He nodded, a small, pathetic thing.

"Do they pity you?" Janus asked. The ridges above Roman's eyes narrowed slightly, like he was thinking.

Janus' senses spiked in alarm when the dragon slid from his blanket-nest and climbed up onto the bed's pillows. The embodiment of denial didn't move, apart from following the creative side's movements with a dark frown.

He went rigid when the dragon's head bumped against his chin, scales rubbing against scales.

He didn't move when he felt tiny talons clicking against his chest, or when a small, warm body pressed against his collar bone.

He might have leaned away a little when horns caught his jawline, but by then Roman was already pulling back and curling up on his chest.

Janus stared down at Creativity. His normally constantly-working mind was silent.

After however long it had been, Roman, who must've felt Janus' gaze burning into his scales, opened his eyes and looked up. For once, Janus didn't know what his expression was doing. Whatever Roman saw obviously made him worried, because even wearing a face of a dragon, his own expression fell. He began to tense, maybe to shift off, but Janus moved first.

He shuffled further down against his bed and hesitantly brought the blanket up over himself, effectively covering the dragon as well. The thing might have even purred, which was ridiculous.

Janus titled his head back. He wasn't particularly tired — was he? — but he figured taking a bit of a break for the day wouldn't be a bad idea. He waved his hand and locked his door. Remus wasn't going to disrupt him or his tiny intruder again just yet.

Roman's breathing had already gone deep and even. Janus' eyelids began to get heavy against his will.

He supposed a _small_ rest wouldn't hurt. He'd just close his eyes for a few minutes. Nothing more.

Several hours later, after Patton had run himself into the ground stressing about Roman's whereabouts and Logan and Virgil had had to endure the fatherly side's incessant worrying, the trio found Deceit's _hat,_ of all things, placed pretentiously atop the television cabinet.

(Logan would no doubt later inquire about how something can be 'pretentiously placed'. Virgil wouldn't give him a clear answer, of course.)

Before any of them could begin to argue about how Deceit would have gotten into their side of the mindscape without them knowing, Patton crept a little closer and squealed.

Logan and Virgil jumped as if they'd been spiked and darted forward.

"Patton?"

"What happened? Was it a trick? Some boobytrap? What did he do to it?"

Patton shushed them from their questions and scuttled back, letting the pair look for themselves.

When they spied the red-scaled dragon curled inside the hat, sides rising and falling peacefully, eyes blissfully closed, they both shared an exasperated look and left to let Patton care for their tiny friend.


End file.
